developing news right now barack obama urges the house to pass of the so-called fiscal cliff deal without delay amid reports of the vote taking place shortly. ireland assumes the six month presidency of the e.u. facing a wide range of issues from a challenging european agenda to its own ailing finances. and it's in that with the new around the globe we digest the highlights of two thousand and twelve and look at the headlines that could have been if things turned out just a bit differently.

and broadcasting live from our studios in moscow this is r.t. i'm john thomas glad to have you with us barack obama is urging the house of representatives to vote for the so-called fiscal cliff deal after a last minute agreement was passed by the senate in the final hours before the deadline on monday the original deal agreed to raise taxes on americans making more than four hundred fifty thousand dollars per year but the house had to postpone the vote indefinitely calling for more spending cuts lawrence freeman editor at the executive intelligence review magazine says nothing can save the u.s. economy from crashing over this fiscal cliff. in any way this whole operation has been a manipulation. in the forest through their work over the minds of the american population be great there is no nothing in the proposal that any way shape or form

will actually help the economy what we're seeing right now again with twenty seven million people unemployed and missing the way they have forty nine point seven million people live we poverty you have tens of millions of people growing to read minds to get their food so this question of the physical comedy in the well for the population is not that all or nothing it's going to be resolved we're going to get aggressively to change the whole winter for them so that where it's legal separation of the banks and now will be some of the there are these where these bills have today or tomorrow obama is living nothing good for the miracle people with. an analogy look at how two thousand and twelve on the whole unfolded folded for america last year was a success for barack obama who secured his second u.s. presidency a washington correspondent says he not only succeeded in snatching victory from arch rival mitt romney but also votes from the third party candidates as well.

there were cheers of relief here when he won i would say because the alternative was thought to be so much worse many voted out of fear that romney could win for them he was another george w. bush so whether americans have fallen out of love with obama that two thousand and eight euphoria was gone that's for sure back then there were these crowds you know in the streets all across the country shedding tears of joy so bad in their view where eight years of bush presidency obama was we get the saviors and then he went and saved the banks saved the auto industry something he took a special pride in during the election campaign but across the country people remained out of work and are still out of work so this time president obama ran under the banner it could have been so much worse as you imagine it was not a banner or a national euphoria it was more like you have no choice but to choose me kind of something that shocked me as i was covering the election here it was it was the

second debate between obama and romney i'm sure you remember if you remember that i just presidential nominee from the green party joel stein was arrested right outside the venue where the debate was taking place she was protesting for exclusion from the state and nobody like no news channel period mentioned her arrest none and i was switching channels for hours to see if anything was said about that and it was nothing i can imagine what the reaction would be here in the states if a presidential candidate is the other big country was arrested in the media there wouldn't even mention it but apparently it happens in the u.s. no big deal presidential candidates get arrested all the time right well there was some irony in that yes anyway during the election campaign the mainstream media has been focused on nothing else and no one else but these two candidates and we are t.v. as you remember of course saw the is saw an opportunity there to show what others don't and we've posted to debate. the end of the year sol barack obama's victory

overshadowed by the primary school shooting in connecticut it led the president to pledge an end to the epidemic of gun violence artie's tom hartman takes a look at whether the land of the free is ready to loosen its grip on the right to carry firearms my guess is what we're going to see is a cosmetic change we're going to see probably the or the assault weapons ban come back to be a fair number of loopholes in it but you know the u.s. is not going to end up going the way that's what's a longer israel have done or many most european countries have done australia when john howard was president one thousand nine hundred eight when there was a mass slaughter and then they said ok that's it we're going to buy back all the guns and it's not going to happen here there's just too much money being made with guns insane supreme court or at least five right wing crazies out of the nine on the supreme court decided that even though the second amendment says in order to maintain a well regulated militia necessary for the security of a free state the right to you know you people have the right to own guns that's half of it the other half of it is that the supreme court also said that

corporations interest groups lobbying groups billionaires can throw unlimited amounts of money in politicians. two thousand and twelve saw something of a rise of the machines as that drone warfare shot into the headlines their killing of civilians abroad and the use for keeping tabs on people inside the u.s. to fire from abby martin the host of artie's breaking that set and she thinks things will get worse in two thousand and thirteen. really when we're talking about drones actually a really serious topic because people are under this notion that drones are somehow precise they're the good way to fight the war on terror really they completely are counterintuitive they create and harbor more terrorists they have a ninety eight percent failure rate i mean so why are we using and i mean it's just amazing to me that this president is rain on drones and taking on more and more drones and then not only that but i mean the surveillance drones are going to happen and in this country in two thousand and thirteen congress passed

a bill to now authorize surveillance drones all over the united states so this is just not going to stop it's going to get worse decide from the from the deaths and the double tap drones that we have in the middle eastern countries now is going to create a chilling effect where people aren't going to want to dissent as much and that's the real problem with the online privacy the online erosion of our civil liberties as well as people are going to speak out as much if they feel like they're being watched just over two years ago ireland was bankrupt and being bailed out to rescue its failed economy on top of that it's now the country's turn to take on the next six months presidency of the european council as long as smith reports the celtic tiger has some hard graft ahead of it. it's all changed by the e.u. presidency as all of the takes over this six month rotating challenge on the first of january not the ovi a choice islands one of the pegs the countries that have the nice stable economies in europe and showed off islands the first country to take hold in the presidency

of the twenty seven nation while being propped up by e.u. and i.m.f. money so for the next six months the e.u. and its a stomach problems will be presided over by one of its weakest and most problematic members so what specific challenges faced in europe over the six months of its presidency. the european economy is slowing and the crisis is nowhere near. secondly it must preside over leaders actually agreeing to an e.u. budget for the two thousand and fourteen to two thousand and twenty something they've spectacularly failed to do so in fall and thirdly there is a problem coming. increasing british opposition to brussels and the threat to european cohesion that uses the irish government expects the e.u. presidency to coast in excess of seventy million euros money the country can ill

afford and what will it be spent twenty four million on catering accommodation and transport for example and another twenty million extra government. robert oulds director of the bruges group says it too much power concentrated in the hands of brussels could it create a serious obstacle for the e.u. members economies. well one of the key what people should have is a via to elect their own governments and for that to actually make a real difference but of course with the european union power has become too centralized amongst the into too sions in brussels and that just takes away power from the ordinary citizens of the european union can tell us why it's that we have but of course we don't actually have the right to make a real difference to the elections because far too many decisions now are made at the supranational level made decisions being made in brussels away from the citizens whether they be the citizens of a violent or britain or spain or greece for that matter and that should really be

restored their economic problems will not be resolved until of course it's recognised that the euro the single currency is the wrong cover for these countries really we need to have a back of powers away from brussels to all the different member states and of course britain should of course have its own referendum on their membership as well and have our own say but it needs to be recognised that the european union is of course failing economically so it still is still there it still exists but the price of people are paying is of course no economic growth and of course massively high unemployment which is now reaching alarming proportions for many different eurozone states investment advisor patrick young forecasts a gloomy future for the eurozone saying a survival of the euro would be miraculous. what's happened so far has been swindling cuts on the masses and we really haven't managed to make the remotest impact upon the whole nation itself greece is still fundamentally in

a huge problematic situation it does not remotely have a functioning government system that fiscally is going to manage to organize itself in any which way possible to manage to get through the continuing swinge cuts that need to take place of course then we're looking at the whole issue of the demonstrators are the governments listening well the truth is the governments can't afford to listen because what we're seeing within the european union even if the euro house survived miraculously for twelve months government has run out of money the european union's western socialist model of spending huge amounts of money borrowing even greater amounts of money and hoping to pay everything manyara or indeed thirty years from mine yana simply does not work for them of speeches but not for the whistleblower. after the break our g.'s correspondent who covered

challenges throughout the year reports on what two thousand and twelve meant for him. mission in. cretaceous three. four judges are free to make amends three. three. three. three broadcast quality video for your media projects free media. wealthy british scientists some time to let. market. find out what's really happening to the global economy

with mike's concert for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to report. and live from moscow this is our team glad to have you back with us it has been a tough twelve months for the world's top whistleblower julian assange spent half of two thousand and twelve under house arrest and the remainder in ecuadorian embassy in london our correspondents are furth has been following his ups and downs throughout the year. a lot of you say we. did more in a year media organizations have done in decades we've really had a front of everything that's been going on we've had him at the beginning of the

year. and we saw his appeal rejected we then saw that dramatic twist in the time when he went into the i could do it and. certainly the british media we see a lot of quite viciously especially during the course of this year with. the rounding. a lot of people would put that down payment simply to jealousy. as the syrian conflict enters its twenty second month international envoy lakhdar brahimi says the crisis must be solved in two thousand and thirteen and wants his peace plan to help achieve that but as the new year rang in heavy clashes and shelling were reported near the capital middle east expert pepe escobar believes that the will to stop the bloodshed should also come from outside syria very sad to see to everybody all over the world that the top jew political tragedy of two thousand and thirteen is going to be the political tragedy of two thousand and

eleven the reap of syria the only possibility would be that the opposition. in a syrian way this sides not to listen to the saudis the turks the americans the brits and the french and they sit down with the assad government and be work out a transitional government or at least the transitional period leading to free and fair elections is this going to happen not like the recent conflict in gaza isn't putting israel off planning even more settlements in the occupied palestinian territories despite saber rattling from hamas and fatah who are valuing to rearm and defend themselves by all means a middle east reporter policy minds how this might affect the region's future. if you look at what's happening on the ground israel continues to announce settlement construction and the palestinians continue to say that for as long as these announcements continue they will be no resumption of peace talks it wasn't so long

ago that the palestinians were awarded upgraded status acting united nations but you cannot detract from the fact that we still have palestinian faction groups hamas and fatah who always seem to me at each other's throats in less than a month the israelis will go to the polls and by all predictions they will really lead the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu for another term of office and it doesn't seem as if he has an olive branch so certainly the prognosis for any kind of peace moves is fog let's hope that as tough as it will be the two sides will find a way to work together a happy new year and we follow with the recent news from the region violence has flared up again in the palestinian territory in the northern west bank several palestinians were reportedly injured when israeli security forces fired on them after the troops were pelted with stones and bottles the trouble erupted after the soldiers disguised as vegetable sellers apparently tried to seize operatives of a local jihadist group checkpoints and blockades have been set up in the area

middle east correspondent updates on twitter just look for policy to. authorities in the ivory coast have declared three days of mourning after a stampede of during new year's celebrations claimed the lives of over sixty people the tragedy occurred when a large crowd was leaving the city stadium after a fireworks show a similar incident happened in angola during a new year's eve festivities leaving ten dead and one hundred twenty injured. just . at least four people have been killed and dozens were wounded after an explosion in a crowded area in pakistan's southern city of karachi police say the bomb was planted on a motorbike and then detonated at a moment when a political rally of the city's dominant party passed by no group has claimed responsibility for the attack on the liberal party but police suspected militants might have targeted the rally prior to upcoming general elections. russian politics saw a kremlin return for vladimir putin and fresh anti-government protests in two thousand

and twelve although in smaller numbers than the year before arty's political analyst watched the developments in the heart of the rallies he told my colleagues kevin i want to end and he said now earlier how he sees the protest mood in russia panning out. i would say it's kind of bleak but not hopeless ok we didn't come up with any new ideas new organization new faces and if pussy riot is that we are of the opposition that's pretty dreadful situation for the russian people and political development in general here and there's there was political change in this country and a positive change does make up the opposition as we head into the it's a very interesting question because i have gone to most of the major demonstrations and there were people there of goodwill in my opinion but then there were fascists there ok who were communists there and they were these are people they're ok and it's your right to demonstrate i also for the actually like me idea but they didn't accomplish anything that i could see they have no organization no unifying ideas except for i don't like but a mere putin which is not a very it's not

a political agenda there were a few protests which i was out as well where it did seem like that was the method if you wanted to gain traction on this opposition movement do you see people coming out and take the train lost a lot of its novelty effect right now ok because political change takes leaders in years and years that have to be local this is what happens in political changes with countries that were what they were carrying at one time it takes a long time to get people involved in the process and that is happening very very strongly there's some people who want to really fast and they don't want to do it through elections they want power because they want power because they believe they deserve it and what about the fact that we're not going to see any presidential elections of course that all led up to being elected a third term this protest and now they're kind of when i'm down now i would say to people i mean if you want to continue to protest fine but you know join a political party there are forty four of them now you have a choice ok get involved see one of the things i saw with

a lot of the protesters is that they want someone else to do all the hard work ok they want to go out and wave a flag and say you know give out a slogan we don't want to do the hard nitty gritty work of political change and that's what we need to do. peter lavelle has been dissecting russian and global politics in his cross talk series throughout the past twelve months and r.t. dot com has plenty of the editions of the show for you to watch on demand. iran chooses a new president in june mahmoud ahmadinejad has served his maximum two terms leaving the question of his successor unanswered the next president will have to tackle the tension with the west over tehran's nuclear program journalist afshin rattansi who has often shared his insights on iran with r.t. doesn't expect of the new leader to bend to foreign will. i think whoever we people of iran elects policy foreign policy things are going to be much the same people

are already talking about the mayor of tehran at the moment i was in a job himself present in a job as the mayor of tehran for the new mayor of tehran ghalibaf and people are talking about him. perhaps winning in june because it's too early and is notoriously difficult to predict iranian elections as to whether they will be as hardline and again the terms in the terminology of western corporate media on this are bizarre and they just get islamic extremists in all sorts of different morning because the point is iran is that stay in terms of forging a very different type of developing nation and economy because it has all that oil it has all those resources and it's not going to suddenly start changing things the way the i.m.f. or the way that washington wants it to be let's now look at some other stories you can find on our website the vatican is a ratcheting up its security. swipe card system implemented after last year's information breach scandal is dedicated to preventing any more the leaks from

occurring. plus research has revealed that only fifty percent of signatures on memorabilia by the beatles and elvis presley are actually authentic head to our website to find out which other celebrities have had their signatures on items for sale. two thousand and thirteen has made it in around the globe but with an array of fireworks performances and a cheering crowd here in russia the new year officially kicks on. with the traditional trial of the country's main clock on one of the gremlins towers across the atlantic over a million spectators descended on new york's iconic times square to celebrate the

event with the traditional drop of the crystal ball and one of the most spectacular shows unveiled was in brazil where some two point five million revelers gathered on the famous copacabana beach there were mixed emotions regarding the year that's past with some sad to see it end but many more hopeful but two thousand and thirteen will see better times parties we see cast off it's a fanciful look at the world of it could have been. twenty twelve was certainly full of disappointing headlines hope fueled by the arab spring turned into the turmoil of the arab autumn and the war in syria claimed countless lives and the fiscal crisis saw the european union torn apart at its very seams and the problems facing our world today certainly don't offer themselves up to an easy fix what if things have turned out differently what if opportunities were actually sees the pawn instead of missed well here's our look at the twenty twelve headlines that could have been. diplomacy succeeds in syria ending

bloody conflict. instead this was the image of syria the world saw increasingly violent clashes between government forces and the opposition had claimed more than forty thousand lives efforts to negotiate a diplomatic solution fall flat because divisions ripped apart both the country and the international community hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled to neighboring states where many have found conditions to be dismal meanwhile syria's war is threatening to spill over its borders as tensions escalate within and in the region. atomic triumph sanctions slashed as iran's nuclear to accept. gunning to end gun fire the u.s. rules to restrict firearms mideast peace. is railings to stay packed with palestine . yet this was their reality israel's assault on palestinian militants in gaza

israel's anti-missile shield repelled in most attacks on its territory but a strike claimed the lives of more than one hundred sixty palestinians many of them civilians despite harsh condemnation from many in the international community the war and israel's subsequent decision to construct three thousand new settlements effectively slammed the door shut to any prospects of peace go for people power moment he stepped aside and let a democracy in. get lost get most notorious kuantan in my prison permanently shot. euro zone cuts the cuts and lifts austerity. but the news of austerity only tightened as deep public sector cuts brought thousands of angry demonstrators to the streets of greece spain italy and portugal. the worst economic crisis of a generation has battered the european union's very foundations exacerbating tensions between member states with some regions now desperately wanting out more

grew up in a europe that was divided from east to west. to europe it is divided from the self i've never at any point of the history of this union has there been more discord of rancor that we covered. corporate cash for the campaign coffers as part of the us political clean. no we here for u.k. british quit european union. we found a jury on the soldier appointed u.n. free speech and. instead a song remains a political refugee at ecuador's london embassy where he's been granted asylum he continues to fight extradition to sweden over alleged sex crimes charges that he says are politically motivated and tied to his work in leaking international government secrets. the power of people speaking up and resisting. together terrifies corrupt and undemocratic power so much so that ordinary people here in the west and the enemy of governments an enemy to be watched and enemy to be

controlled and to be impoverished true democracy is not the white house true democracy is not camera true democracy is the resistance of people with the truth against lies from to right here in london. every day on here you people teach us that democracy is free speech and dissent. from heretics to hero american whistleblower bradley manning finally free. droning on the nations agree to end era of remote controlled war. egypt's arab spring sees democracy defeat hardline islamist. the reality on the ground was anything but injection president mohamed morsi is foul like power grab unleashed fury and frenzied street battles and a fast track to constitutional overhaul referendum left

a bitter opposition eager for change for them two thousand and twelve saw the arab spring transformed into an egyptian nightmare had the revolution to get rid of a tired. in order to that we made elections and that evolution and elections to choose someone to the present us and turned out that this guy is also a tyrant himself and he has had lines may have been the stuff of imagination but let's see if twenty thirty i want them to live with the confidence of our team moscow. and coming up are two introduces you to father nikolai an orthodox priest who has adopted over seventy children that's after a short break right here on our trip.

i never thought i could earn a living messmate. natale a shell of oil as an armor should test small arms so that's what almost a machine building plant natalee also lost count of all the weapons she's fired over the past twelve years. i got so used to it sometimes my friends ask me to join them at the rifle range and i say no way i'm so tired of shooting. the planet's history goes from making firearms during world war two to ballistic missiles from nuclear submarines during the cold war the bulk of the soviet industry was moved here in the 1940's to flee the virus in germans so if you were also became the heart of soviet military production closed off to foreigners for half a century it thrived on a massive moods of the soviet military when the u.s.s.r. collapsed but life here was shaken to the core but some adapted to better than others.